


A Little Jar Of Stardust

by shingekinoyolo



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 05:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3638019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shingekinoyolo/pseuds/shingekinoyolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I have a little jar full of coloured stars, each with a fancy word upon it. Each fancy words has a fancy meaning, and each fancy meaning tends to make for a nice oneshot.</p>
<p>So, this is where I'm going to keep them.</p>
<p>(Could be about absolutely anything, but will probably mostly be SNK characters, some AU, some not. Mostly AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Petrichor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Petrichor: The smell outside after it rains.
> 
> (For a fun bonus, imagine this as Springles. Connie's POV)

Wet pavement is the only thing that I can smell. It used to be my favourite because of the memories it holds, but now it’s my least for the very same reason.

It’s what I could smell when we both left work the first day I met you. You waved goodbye and I smiled even though it hurt to watch you go.

It’s what I could smell when I turned up on your doorstep that first night to ask if I could borrow an umbrella, having lost my own in the middle of a thunderstorm. You invited me inside instead and told me I couldn’t go home in conditions like that.

It’s what I could smell when I asked you to see a movie with me on the Saturday that we ended up sharing our first kiss. I could smell it then too.

It’s what I could smell outside the restaurant when we’d been together for a year. Your breath smelt of wine and your eyes looked like stars and your lips tasted like something I wanted to taste again. And again. And again. And outside still smelt like wet pavement.

It’s what I could smell when I asked you to marry me. I was on one knee when the heavens split open and we ended up dancing in circles for hours and drinking until our words were meaningless slurs and we didn’t _care_ what the neighbours thought when we came staggering home at that _ungodly_ hour.

It’s what I could smell when you had our baby boy. He has you laugh, my darling, and your smile too. It shines just as bright as yours did when you held him for the first time, carried him to the car with the smell of rain lingering in the air.

...It’s what I could smell when you told me. I knew you hadn’t been well, but I never knew it would come to that. You cried into my shoulder and I cried into your hair and who knows how long we were there for, my reassurances meaning nothing because we both knew the truth, and our son was oblivious to everything.

I’m not sure he even knows now, my love, as we stand in front of you and lie flowers by your head. I can smell wet pavement, and it reminds me of you. Of us. And I’ll never forget.

I love the smell because it helps me remember, but I hate it for the very same reason.

I can still smell wet pavement, my dear, and I never want it to stop.


	2. Gotong-Royong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gotong-royong: the joint sharing of burdens, the bearing of the weight of the world together with trusted friends.

Isn’t it funny how after you do something so inexplicably wrong, the first thing that you feel is the adrenaline?

Isn’t it funny how you don’t even feel a slight inkling of regret, not even in the very back, darkest corner of your mind? 

And isn’t it funny how here, on a dusty, desert road with no signs of other human life around us, I feel the most at home behind the wheel with Armin riding shotgun and Mikasa firing her gun from the back seat at the wheels of the police car on our tail?

The three of us had never really played by the rules, not even as kids. Maybe it was jumping over the fence and sneaking into the school playground after it was closed, or maybe it was stealing a candy bar from the shop on the street corner when Mrs Kirschtein wasn’t paying attention. 

Maybe, when we were a little older, we would spray-paint graffiti onto the walls of the train station, and maybe we got caught and put into holding on a few occasions. Maybe we nearly got caught for forgery one time, and maybe we’ve been caught for shop lifting multiple times. 

And, you know, maybe we just tried our first real robbery and got caught in the process.

There’s dust kicking up from the screeching tires of my Maserati, (that may or may not legally be mine), smacking against the windscreen and coming in through the space where the roof should be. Without the roof of the car, my hair is tangled and I have to squint through the wind, but the harsh, cold air against my skin makes it worth it. It enhances the thrill of the chase. Life feels better with the roof down. 

“Eren!” Mikasa calls from the back seat, “Can you go faster? They’re getting real close.” I grin and slam my foot harder onto the accelerator, almost adding a third to our speed. I can see the horror in Armin’s face to my right as he grips on to the sides of his seat with everything he’s got, knuckles turning white. I’m almost glad he can’t see the adrenaline in my eyes behind my aviator glasses. 

We race through the dust and rocks, a minor amount of shrubbery on either side but nothing else to be seen, tires still screeching every time I make a slight turn. The thrill takes over. I go faster.

“EREN, can we PLEASE slow down a little bit?” Armin yells at me over the wind and the roaring engine, to which I shake my head and continue to speed over the road. He’s a scaredy cat, but he loves it, really. Armin feels the rush after the danger aspect is out of the way. Besides, without him, I’d have no idea where to drive to, and Mikasa and I never would have gotten away with so many petty crimes without Armin telling us how to do them. 

The police car’s engine is gradually becoming quieter and quieter behind us, which only makes me grin wider still. There’s a first time for everything, and it looks like, for the first time, we’d outrun the police. Together. 

There’s a part of me, somewhere, that thinks that I wouldn’t even mind all that much if we got caught. We’d laugh in the cell about how much it was worth it, and if we face the facts, we’re more than likely to try to break out and do it all again.

I mean, why not? It’s all we’ve ever done. Why stop?


	3. Cheiloproclitic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cheiloproclitic: Being attracted to someone’s lips.
> 
> (For a fun added bonus: Imagine this as Yumikuri. Ymir's POV).
> 
> Dedicated to [petrichorstarlight](http://archiveofourown.org/users/petrichorstarlight/pseuds/petrichorstarlight) cause she's really rad and I know how much she loves fluff and YumiKuri.

It’s strange.

I’ve known her my entire life, and yet I’m only starting to feel like this after nineteen years of living.

It’s strange.

I’ve spent so long clawing for her attention, doing whatever it took for her to notice me, _knowing_ that there was something different about her that I couldn’t quite place.

And it’s strange.

So bizarrely, unfathomably strange, that of all the places that I could have realised how I felt about her, it just had to be right here and right now. My birthday. And she is standing up there on the stage, drunk out of her mind, singing the worst (but in my ears, the best,) rendition of Take On Me that I’ve ever heard in my life.

The strangest thing about it is that I don’t remember ever _starting_ to feel like this. I guess it’s always been there. It’s only that I’m finally realising what it is.

I’ve read about it in story books and fairy tales. It’s how Prince Charming felt for the Princess and Romeo for Juliet. Robin Hood for Maid Marian and The Beast for Beauty. (Her, more than obviously, being Beauty. What with the way her golden hair falls over her shoulders and how she laughs and hiccups over drunken slurs).

Her beautiful grin is plastered to her face, the silver flecks in her eyes catching the light and making them positively _glow_. I’m in love with her. I don’t know how it happened and I don’t know why, but having been oblivious to it for so long it’s now all that I can see, clearer than day and burning brighter than the stars themselves.

I’m in love with her.

Her dress flicks around her ankles as she sways on the spot, leaning on the microphone stand for support with her giggles louder than the words she’s barely singing. Her cheeks are red and her hair is sticking to her forehead with sweat, but she’s still so beautiful. She always is. She always has been.

I’m _so_ in love with her.

I want to stroke her hair back behind one ear and lift her off her feet. I want to hold her close to me, so close that our chests touch, and I want to lean down close enough to tell her that I love her. That I always have, and that I always will. I want to tell her that I love her and I want to hear her say it back, and I want to kiss her.

Dear lord, I want to kiss her.

I start walking to the stage where her song is finishing, my heart racing behind my ribcage, beating so hard and so fast that it feels as though it might break through the bone encasing it. I reach the bottom of the steps just as she trips down them, and I catch her in my arms.

“Careful, there,” I say to her, helping her stand upright in front of me.

“Thank you,” she giggles, the smell of alcohol stains her breath when she talks but I don’t smell it.

She doesn’t move and neither do I. We’re trapped in time, motionless, eyes locked on one another until mine flick down to her lips and I see hers do the same.

I kiss her.

At first I only taste the Budweiser on her, but I soon taste what’s underneath. She tastes of sleeping in late and summer mornings, lazy afternoons and evenings on the beach. She tastes of memories and right now and times we haven’t yet spent together. She tastes of liquorice and spices and everything I want to keep holding on to. She tastes like home. I don’t want to leave.

She pulls away and I pull her back again one more time. With the state she’s in, I don’t know how much she’ll remember by morning. I don’t know if she means it, but for now, I’ll take it.

She’s everything I dreamed she would be and more. And it’s strange. It’s so strange that of the seven billion people on the planet, she’s the one that I fell for.


	4. Collywobbles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Collywobbles - Butterflies in one's stomach.

I always thought that brown hair was my type. Brown hair, green eyes, polite and courteous. I’d always imagined myself settling down with a guy like that - until I met this one.

This guy was different. In fact, he couldn’t be _more_ different to the person that I’d thought was ideal. He had sandy blonde hair styled into an undercut with bright, topaz eyes that held a strange glint inside, something that made you stare despite not wanting to draw attention to yourself. He had a strong jaw line and movie-star white teeth, and dear god, he had the _worst_ personality of anyone I’d ever met.

He was stubborn and protective and vain. The three things that I’d never been able to stand in a boy. But in him, in Jean Kirschtein, it was different. He was stubborn in a way that you could hold a debate with him and he was always determined that he was right (even when he knew that he was wrong). Protective in a way that most people found annoying, apart from me, the boy he was protecting, who found it very cute. Vain in a way that was funny to me, the way that he’d check himself out in a mirror and say “Marco, does this shirt look good?” And before I could even reply, he’d say, “Of course it does, _I’m_ wearing it.”

Jean Kirschtein was different. Polite to my mother in a way that someone might even thing he was flirting if he weren’t obviously so outright gay. Kind to my little brother in a way that one day, I wouldn’t mind raising my _own_ child with him. Friendly to my father in a way that at dinner, he would ask me about Jean and his work and tell me to ask him to drop by again so that they could talk about baseball some more.

I’ve never been more thankful for anyone than I was for Jean. Every time I looked at him I would smile and his laugh was so contagious that we’d end up in stitches within a matter of minutes. He’d make eye contact with me from across the room and I’d feel my heart flutter when he winked at me, his signature smirk playing at his lips.

I’ll always remember the first time I met him. Both of us were vaguely friends with the same girl and ended up being invited to a house party with what seemed like thousands of other people. I’m still not entirely sure why I went - I’ve never been a people person, but I can’t even begin to explain how glad I am that I did.

If not for that night, I never would have gone outside for some fresh air and found the sandy-haired boy on the porch smoking a cigarette. I never would have sat down beside him and asked why he was outside and he never would have told me that music _that_ loud hurt his ears, despite how tough he pretended to be. We never would have ended up sitting there and talking for hours about the pointless things in life. I never would have caved in and told him about my ex and my heartbreak and he never would have told me that he knew a remedy for that and I never would have asked what it was and he never would have kissed me.

I never would have felt the butterflies in my stomach expanding and growing and burning as I realised that this was going to be more than a one night hook-up. As I realised that his face looked beautiful with the moon lighting him up from behind. As I realised that, dear God, I wanted to be with this man for a long, long time.

And I still do.


	5. Rantipole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rantipole - To be wild and reckless.

You know, I never thought that Marco was the wild type.

The way that I liked to think of him was as a candle. Unlit. Cast away by most and stuffed into that draw of everything you never use next to your bed. He collected dust, even though he had so much potential, the potential to be the brightest light. The potential to bring the stars to the Earth. The potential to be the wanted of the unwanted.

I’d been close to Marco for years, despite our being polar opposites. Marco was always books and work, whereas I was a live-in-the-moment kind of guy. Marco was nothing like me. At least, that was what I thought, until tonight. Tonight, where I’m looking at him, his golden brown eyes staring into mine from where he’s perched in my open window.

“Come with me, Jean,” he whispers, and it doesn’t take me a second to obey.

With a grin like a Cheshire cat, he turns and swings from my window frame, leaps across to the next roof. I follow him. He starts to run across the roofs, jumping the small gaps between each one, and I follow him. It’s a rush of excitement, a thrill that even _I_ ’ve never felt before, and it comes from Marco, of all people. The unlit flame.

Except he isn’t now - he’s burning. Not like a candle, no, that’s too small. Marco is a star. A galaxy. A _nebula_ of light, his own universe, the brightest glow I’ve ever seen. And to think - is it from my match? Did _I_ set this fire ablaze within him?

Even at merely the possibility, my legs become faster, more confident against the tiled roofs and needlessly supporting my already-floating body.

Did I really do this? This shy boy that I’ve known so long - that I’ve _loved_ for so long - could it be that now, at last, his fire burns because of me, as mine does for him?

I follow still, chasing him across the roofs as he jumps and flings his limbs into a somewhat-pose in mid-air, shouts and yells of triumph breaking free of him.

And I wonder - how long has this been the real Marco? For how long has he been a contained ball of energy, forced into his cluttered drawer? For how long has he been waiting to be lit? And I realise, now, for how long has my match been burning away, getting nearer and nearer to my fingers where they will soon begin to burn?

We’re still running. Running, running, running. Soaring over the missing links of the houses as his flames flow behind him like a golden flag of freedom.

He stops.

Just like that, and he turns to me, walks towards me. I wonder - is this the moment I’ve dreamt of for so long? My eyes fall closed and I hear him walk closer still. Could it be-?

“Stay here, be quiet.” My heart plummets and my eyelids snap apart to see him swing off the side of the roof and into an open window. I stand on the edge of red tiles and listen closely. There’s laughter, and small talk, and finally, a kiss. Long and heated and full of love, burning passion, fire. My fingers become singed and my fuse burns out.

Is this heartbreak? Is this despair? Or is this merely the signs of an unrequited love, in which the candle had already been met by a different flame?

I’d lit my only match for him, to find that he was already burning.


	6. Redimancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Redamancy: The act of loving the one who loves you; a love returned in full.
> 
> I tried to do a poem? I've never done this before so uh, yeah. Idk.  
> (Non-fandom)

Did you ever hear the tale of how the moon did love the sun,  
Through her glowing light and burning fire he knew she was the one;  
How he wished to spend his days with her, the one who owned his heart,  
Though he could never get to her - the brightest of the stars.

You mustn’t think, not for one breath, that she didn’t feel it too,  
For the sun cared just as much for him, her feelings just as true;  
She yearned for his cool presence to oppose her burning flame,  
Though she wasn’t even certain he had knowledge of her name.

They tried to get attention from each other day and night,  
Though it’s harder than it seems when one needs darkness, one needs light;  
An endless circle, they pursued, the sun chasing the moon,  
With true belief that if they tried, they might achieve it soon.

Have you ever seen the moon up in the middle of the day?  
He tries to get a glimpse of her and gets carried away;  
He sees the sun return his glance and turns away in rush,  
So next time, look so closely, you may even see her blush.

For they still try, the moon and sun, to reach each others hearts,  
And so their story’s nothing short of something of an art;  
His love will stretch and so will hers in ever growing hope,  
Despite the fact their love grows from an ever shrinking rope.

They’ll keep their circle up until the sun is done burning,  
And by this point the moon will not be done in his yearning;  
As one large rock in outer space, he’ll spend his final days,  
Having never reached his one true love, not been warmed by her rays.

So now you’ve heard the tale of how the moon did love the sun,  
Through her glowing light and burning fire he knew she was the one;  
Even if you live so far apart, one always stands in rain,  
That doesn’t mean Cupid’s arrow will spare you of his pain


	7. To Fall In Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one isn't based off of a prompt i just felt like writing it lmao

What is it, to fall in love?

You see, there has always been one thing to which I relate falling in love, and that’s just it - falling. Perhaps it’s short and sweet, a brief plummet from a diving board and before you know it you’re swimming so fluently that it seems almost impossible to walk on land again.

Or perhaps you’re the opposite. Perhaps you’re the type to have stumbled into the shaky cart of a roller-coaster, and the bar is down securing your fate before you’ve even taken note of the route ahead. You start to move. Fear wraps its tapered talons around your throat and you fight to get off before it’s too late - but it already is, and the cart is rising.

Up and up and up, and you are breathless. As you get higher, you begin to feel so much more. You are afraid. What if you fall? How fast must this plummet before you be? Will you ever get off this hellish ride? But the thing is - we all know what’s lying underneath. Whether it be hiding deep down or crisp and fresh and just beneath your skin, there is excitement. Excitement for what’s ahead, for the fear and the joy and the love and the heartache. Who knows what will happen? The anticipation eats away at you from the inside out like a hungry wolf, and you are being torn apart by the sharp teeth of each emotion - excitement or fear? Which will you choose?

Now you’re falling. Just like that, with almost no warning, your rising time has run out and everything is crashing down around you. You cannot see what’s ahead and you cannot look back, you’re stuck with naught but yourself, falling and falling and falling some more. What is this that you feel? Fear. It’s certainly fear that grips your heart and your lungs like it has nothing else. Fear that takes the words from your mouth and instead makes you scream for life. And you’re still falling. When will it end? You begin to think that perhaps it never will. Perhaps you’re forever stuck in this rut of falling in love and screaming until your voice is hoarse, and you wonder - can anybody hear you?

But you’re not stuck. And once you’ve stopped, it’s clear as day. Your cart levels out back on the ground and your heart is racing, but the fear loosens its grasp on your organs and instead you feel something else. Something much deeper and frightful and intimate, and you’ve arrived, and you’re in love. The realisation hits you like a tonne of bricks - but no, it’s more than that. This feeling is too strong to put into such a limited vocabulary that is the English language, and so perhaps such a feeling can never be portrayed through words correctly, and perhaps it is one that a person must experience first hand.

But if I may say one more thing: being in love - it is surely worth the fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm aromantic. lol. pls tell me if this is in any way wrong it's kinda just based off of what i've gathered from society
> 
> also yeah hi i still exist ahah, i've been kinda quiet. hello my smols


End file.
